Robert Hayes

My research career really began as an undergraduate when I was doing a double major in mathematics and physics. I got a job as a research assistant in the Center for Applied Dosimetry in the University of Utah Radiobiology Department. There I assisted with analysis and measurement of tooth enamel using electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR, the same physics are involved here as in MRI imaging although with MRI, we image proton density rather than radiogenic free radicals created by exposure to ionizing radiation as done with EPR). I continued on in this position in obtaining an MS in physics where I continued to do research and publish papers accordingly.

When I went on to the PhD program in Nuclear Engineering, I did my research in EPR of tooth enamel and alanine. Tooth enamel EPR dosimetry is primarily focused on epidemiology as done for Chernobyl and similar large scale nuclear events. Here, you request local dentists save tooth tissue from root canals, those being fitted for dentures, wisdom tooth extraction and deciduous teeth, within a few months a reasonable representative sample of the population can be obtained.  These make excellent lifetime integrating dosimeters using EPR. Alanine is a NIST recommended dosimetric material used for secondary standard dose rate calibration and so was also evaluated in my dissertation.

Upon completing my PhD, I took a short postdoc evaluating the historical radiation protection program at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. Prior to completing the postdoc, I took a job in industry at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). The WIPP being the world’s first licensed geological repository for transuranic (TRU) was already licensed for contact handled TRU waste but was in the process of gearing up to get licensed for remote handled (RH) TRU waste to which I was hired to support.

While working on the RH TRU project, I became certified as a Senior Nuclear Criticality Safety Specialist and obtained my certification as a Health Physicist through the American Board of Health Physics. This resulted in my ideas for novel kernel density estimators which could be used for upper subcritical limit determinations in Dk values which would later be incorporated into the SCALE SAMPLER package. In addition to this, during my service to the WIPP RH TRU project, I did the fully complete and comprehensive shielding analysis for the entire RH TRU process along with that for the hot cell complex used in processing the RH canisters when received from shipping.

While working at the WIPP in support of the RH TRU project, I chose to spend my spare time in the evenings teaching mathematics and physics for the Carlsbad branch of the College of the Southwest as I lived in Carlsbad NM during this time. This was a local branch of a liberal arts college who had a pre-med program and so needed professors for calculus, statistics and physics which I taught during the evenings as a second job because of my love for teaching. While at the WIPP I also supported radiological air monitoring, operational health physics and environmental characterization efforts.

Other accomplishments while at WIPP during this initial stint included the idea which later resulted in the MCNP® product known as P-Study[1]. This was the first capability to do total Monte Carlo for uncertainty analysis and error propagation using these techniques and has since been incorporated into the SCALE software suite known as SAMPLER. Prior to leaving WIPP the first time, I initiated and later administered an ANS national topical meeting for the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division (RPSD) to be hosted in Carlsbad NM in 2006.

In 2005 I accepted an offer to work on the federal emergency response teams for nuclear events. This required moving to North Las Vegas, NV as these teams deployed out of Nellis AFB nearby. In this capacity, my primary job was that of an assessment scientist for any radiological or nuclear accident of national interest (these were the same teams that were sent to support the Fukushima event). In addition to all radiological exposure event, I also served as the team scientist for multiple campaigns at the former Nevada Test Site (NTS) where all commercial radiation detectors intended for customs and border control had to be tested for all performance metrics on actual special nuclear material in a host of potential storage and shipment configurations. In this role, I also continued research and publishing in the field, of radiation detection (surface and airborne), contamination characterization and radiological air monitoring. Prior to leaving the NTS, I initiated and later administered another ANS topical meeting of the RPSD to be hosted in Las Vegas of 2010.

Due to assorted family issues, we chose to move our kids back to New Mexico in 2009 where I was rehired by the WIPP site to support radiation dosimetry, nuclear safety and radiological emergency response. Here, was qualified to serve on their Radiological Assistance Program (RAP) as the team scientist where I supported various training event and an actual real world release from the Los Alamos National Lab involving a ⁹⁹Tc event which required multiple RAP teams from around the country.

This time, we chose to live in Hobbs NM which is the home of the University of the Southwest where I again took an adjunct position teaching all the undergraduate calculus, statistics and physics courses for their pre-med students. As usual, I continued to do research and publish accordingly but due to my duties at the WIPP, travel made it difficult to keep a regular schedule of weekly classes. As a result of this conflict I switched over to popular science writing and became the science columnist for our local newspaper (the Hobbs News Sun). Here, I could educate people without compromising the quality of work at either the WIPP or the newspaper.

While conducting my regular duties at the WIPP in this last stint, I was recruited by the Laboratory for Nuclear Physics in the MIT Physics Department by their Chair Dr. Peter Fisher to assist with their Dark Matter Telescope located in the WIPP repository. This was a time projection chamber looking for potential spin dependent cross sections for dark mater particles. As such, I served as an MIT research affiliate until 2016 (after I came to NCSU). It was also at this time that I was honored as a Fellow in the American Physical Society for my assorted research work on the back end of the fuel cycle in support of the WIPP mission.

On Valentine’s day of 2014, a TRU waste drum from LANL deflagrated creating a fireball along with a very large radiological release of ²⁴¹Am into the WIPP underground. This also generated a small offsite release which resulted in a full scale local emergency response effort which fell on me to serve as the point in conducting the entire consequence assessment of the event. Similarly, I supported the subsequent recovery efforts leading up to the eventual operational restart of the WIPP.

Now that I have come to State, I am a joint faculty appointment with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). At ORNL I am affiliated with both the nuclear security modeling group and the center for radiation protection knowledge. I also work part time for the commercial vendor TetraTech in occasional support tasks for ORNL. I also served on the faculty senate and the faculty assembly for the NCSU and the UNC system respectively. I have also enabled our department to offer a minor in health physics and have been very active in professional society activities supporting our students.

In summary, having well over a decade of industrial with overlapping federal experience in the back end of the fuel cycle and radiological emergency response, I have worked professionally and widely published in a broad distribution of nuclear engineering applications along with many aspects of health physics. Being a certified health physicist and licensed professional nuclear engineer, I was also made a fellow of the American Physical Society for my service in nuclear waste management.